Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

No Place Like Home #1No Place Like Home #1
Image Comics
Tirotto & Jordan

No Place Like Home is a comic book that coming into I literally had no idea what to expect. I had read that the book was mostly an alternate version of the Wizard of Oz. On the other hand, the cover of a young female character exposing her cleavage with a "Surrender" tattoo across her upper chest led me to think the book may be something else entirely. Then, I read the preview and found the book to be a straight up horror story. In some ways, this book is mostly the latter but there is more going on here than just a horror story. This is a very good first issue where the author promises to take the story in the Wizard of Oz direction in short order, but you will not find that parallel here.

The book begins with a tornado tearing up a Kansas town coupled with the murder of an elderly couple. This prompts the L.A. based daughter to return to Kansas for their funeral. Dee, is met at the bus stop by her friend (or is it cousin?), Lizzie. From here, the book mostly follows the duo throughout the rest of the book.

The townspeople are under the impression that the couple were killed by the tornado but the town drunk feels that they were murdered by something unnatural and shows up periodically throughout the book to scare the living daylights out of people. Lizzie and Dee seem to be the target of the town drunk but things unravel quickly as the book really hits its stride by the end.

The book is a very tightly written story. The comic doesn't rely heavily on caption boxes as it allows for the reader to get to know the characters through their interactions. For the most part, the girls seem like fish-out-of-water in this old-fashioned Kansas town, but they are all well loved and universally accepted. I suspect this will all change drastically as we step more towards the Land of Oz.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe artwork is very detailed and extremely good. There are a couple of key points of horror and a couple of panels that are meant to simply jolt the reader and the art delivers perfectly. If I had to point out some flaws, it's in the consistency, mostly around Lizzie's outfits. She is seen wearing a scarf and then missing it panel to panel and that goes for her fishnet stockings at the funeral as well. Still, I was really pleased with how the art pushed the emotions that the story was narrating. This is a good visual story.

No Place Like Home is definitely something different. I was really on the fence about picking this book up and I am very glad that I did. I can't wait to see where the creative team is taking this story. At this point, Wizard of Oz or not, I plan to pick up the next issue. This is definitely worth checking out.

4 out of 5 Geek Goggles